The adventures of a homeschooling family

Howard and RachelAnnie, Emma, Sarah, Laura and Adam

Monday, June 14, 2010

Hitting the printer does not fix it

Sad, but true. I used up all the available ink in the printer today. As in, I got the low ink message well over a month ago and still kept copying. Today's copies were pathetic so I broke down, dragged the kids to Walgreens and bought a new black cartridge. I inserted it and proceeded to press enter to align cartridge. I was not rewarded with instant copying, however. I kept getting the message "Press Enter to align cartridge" I repeatedly pressed enter. I swear I used up half that new cartridge. I started whacking the top of the printer. It didn't help but made me feel a little better.

As usual, I ended up calling Howard to solve my problems for me. He sympathized. He even looked up new printers and almost bought one for me to pick up. Then he decided to troubleshoot it. It would seem that if the color ink is out, the printer will not align a black cartridge. Who knew?

I dashed off to Walgreens to get the color refilled (if the printer was dead I wasn't about to pay for a brand new cartridge). I got the old black one refilled too, I had a coupon. I have obtained the refilled color cartridge and our 6 year old printer will live to print another day.